


Just The Way I'm Not

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Series: Back in Black [1]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Crack, Awesome T'Challa (Marvel), BAMF T'Challa (Marvel), Crack Treated Seriously, Cultural Differences, Humor, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Insecure Tony, M/M, Sweet T'Challa (Marvel), Tony Being Tony, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, because i have fuckin I D E A S bitches, because i have things to do tomorrow, but instead i fuckin wrote this, its late and i should be in bed, prelude to a kid fic, yall better appreciate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 11:59:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13763706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: T’Challa lets out a sigh and Tony knows something is coming. Despite what everyone else thought they both thought out the implications of their marriage well, especially T’Challa’s eventual duties as king. They knew each other well even considering their courtship was considerably short.





	Just The Way I'm Not

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so the first half of this? All crack. The last half? Surprisingly sad and hopefully not culturally insensitive. I tried to like... work with things. Hopefully it all came across decent. Anyways this is a series and I have M A N Y plans and a whole adventure planned out for Tony/ T'Challa's kid including some romance and shenanigans in America and Wakanda, this is actually just the prelude to it. I wanted something to set up context and whatnot. Also T'Challa and Nakia were adorable and I thought it'd be a shame to scrap that entirely so I kept her in as a close friend, but thought her and Rhodey would be an interesting pair (possibly more on them later).
> 
> Warnings for some mentions of child abuse, and miiiiiild Black Panther spoilers. I doubt you'd catch it this out of context, but there's some in there.

“Look I’m just saying giving up _her_ for _him_ is easily the craziest thing you’ve ever done,” Rhodey tells T’Challa. He gestures to Nakia to prove his point and Tony is _offended_.

“Excuse me, what’s that supposed to mean?” he asks Rhodey.

Rhodey rolls his eyes at him, “it means she’s hotter than you, dipshit. Plus dealing with you means dealing with white nonsense, I bet Nakia has no white nonsense,” he says.

Tony makes an offended noise, “I do not have white nonsense! That’s like… confederate flag shit, right?” he asks, unsure what exactly that meant. “Plus she grew up in a country of black people and is also black, she has an unfair advantage,” he adds, earning a _look_ from Rhodey that Tony knows illustrates that was some white nonsense. Okay, so in Rhodey’s defense that was probably some kind of proof of white nonsense but still. He felt he was mostly nonsense free white or otherwise, that last comment notwithstanding. Everyone had bad days.

“Yeah the confederate flag thing counts among other things like not knowing racism was still a thing in America,” he says, raising an eyebrow at Tony.

Tony glares at the ground, “I was _twelve_ , give a guy a break,” he mumbles in his own defense.

This earns him another eye roll, “if I had to know racism still existed at twelve so did you,” Rhodey tells him.

“Well you were gracious enough to teach me and you have to admit that’s less of a misconception that homelessness was a job,” he says and T’Challa gives him a look that betrayed more of his internal thoughts than any usual expression he wore thanks to his political position. In Tony’s defense he deserved the absolute bewilderment and confusion on T’Challa’s face but _still_. Bad days, he had them sometimes and he was a kid, kids say the damndest things. It’s just that most of the things he said were the damndest things.

“Oh yeah, this one thought quarters were a myth and that one hundred thousand dollars was a small amount of money. That’s his rich people nonsense, which Nakia probably doesn’t have either,” Rhodey says, looping it right back around to his original discussion.

T’Challa, however, looks at the ground with a slight redness to his cheeks, “I thought one million wasn’t a lot,” he says in a shamed tone and Rhodey gives him the same look T’Challa gave Tony ten seconds before.

“What the _fuck_ , man?” Rhodey asks and T’Challa sighs.

“In my defense I am a trillionaire so in that context one million _is_ a small amount of money,” he says not that he looks very proud of his previous misconception.

“Yeah, you think _my_ rich nonsense was bad you should hear T’Challa’s tales from childhood,” Tony says, snickering. Sure he grew up mega rich and yeah, he had a _lot_ of weird misconceptions of the world thanks to his cushy life but T’Challa’s stories were almost as hilariously bad as his. Actually some of them were worse. Shuri, however, got to avoid all embarrassment by watching her brother and not making his stupid mistakes.

Rhodey shakes his head, “you know what, I don’t think I can handle that right now so how about you two play wing men and help me score a date with T’Challa’s ex seems how his dumb ass passed her up for some reason. So what’s she like?” he asks, leaning forward expectantly.

Tony looks over at Nakia training a small child to fight and in the kid’s defense she was a scrappy fighter. Kind of like a tiny Shuri but with fists flailing instead of designs. Something tells him this whole thing was going to be hilarious to watch but he turns back to T’Challa, curious to see how he’d handle this.

T’Challa doesn’t disappoint either because he’d giving Rhodey one of those _looks_ he got when he thought the conversation was ridiculous but he sighs regardless. “She likes spy things, helping people, birds, that kind of stuff,” he says and Tony snorts at that entirely unhelpful advice.

“Just ask her to train you in hand to hand combat,” Tony offers when Rhodey gives T’Challa an unimpressed look at his terrible attempts at giving Rhodey useful information.

“I already know how to fight,” Rhodey says, frowning.

“Not like she does, let her kick your ass, I wanna watch,” he wheezes out, covering his mouth as he starts laughing.

T’Challa grins, “you never let me down,” he says, laughing as well.

Rhodey gathers neither of them will be useful before he informs them of their incompetent attempts at being wingmen and decides to chance it with Nakia. “Here we go,” T’Challa murmurs as he heads off looking entirely too confident already.

“This is going to end in disaster,” Tony confirms, leaning into T’Challa’s side. T’Challa wraps an arm around him as Rhodey swaggers up to Nakia- Tony really had no less embarrassing way to describe it- and Nakia straightens up to address him, smiling.

Rhodey promptly shits the bed and lets out a loud wheeze, “hi,” he says in this weirdly strangled voice that has Tony busting a gut laughing.

“I did the same thing when we met,” T’Challa squeezes out between laughs. “It is universal!”

When Rhodey turns around to shoot a panicked look at Tony and T’Challa, presumably to silently ask for the typical wingman duties of fucking salvaging this disaster of an approach, he’s extremely offended to find them doubled over laughing.

Nakia, however, is a good sport about it and only gives Rhodey a knowing look, clearly aware that she had that kind of affect on people. “Is there something you wanted to say?” she asks, raising an eyebrow. Tony might have been offended at Rhodey suggesting that T’Challa dumping Nakia for him- which wasn’t even close to what happened- was a total downgrade at first but he wasn’t now. Mostly because he would have laughed in Rhodey’s face if he were Nakia but she was clearly a better person than him.

“Kick my ass,” Rhodey blurts out, wincing hard. “I mean teach me how to fight,” he corrects, words nearly lost to Tony and T’Challa’s loud wheeze at Rhodey’s attempts at asking Nakia out.

Finally Nakia breaks and laughs, shaking her head. “Congratulations T’Challa, your embarrassing attempts to ask me out have finally been topped. But, because I like you, I will teach out how to fight,” Nakia tells Rhodey. He immediately whips around to give Tony an excited look and he shakes his head, happy that it all ended well at least.

*

T’Challa lets out a sigh and Tony knows something is coming. Despite what everyone _else_ thought they both thought out the implications of their marriage well, especially T’Challa’s eventual duties as king. Granted they came far sooner than he had expected when his father died quickly with without notice, sort of ruining their honeymoon, but still. They had talked at length about Tony’s business in America, T’Challa’s duties in Wakanda, how neither was willing or able to give those things up, and how they were going to make things work. They knew each other well considering their courtship was considerably short especially by Wakandan standards. America liked to wait a little, Wakanda preferred things to move at fucking snail pace. Which was probably why, in hindsight, T’Challa and Nakia didn’t work out as a couple.

They were good friends still of course, and they were close, but they grew apart because they had different goals and ideas. Ironically T’Challa ended up seeing things Nakia’s way anyways and had followed through his father’s plan to open the country up to the world on a much wider scale, but it took time and Tony. Tony didn’t think he did anything particularly special aside from find T’Challa’s cousin, who did most of the heavy lifting as far as changing T’Challa’s mind, but marrying a foreigner meant he had to look at things differently. Most of that involved a lot of discussion and T’Challa learned from Nakia- talk about life goals early on to avoid finding out that was a mismatch later.

All of this meant something as simple as a sigh could tell Tony that something was coming so he waits patiently until T’Challa sighs again. “My mother is worried that I am basking in the honeymoon part of our relationship too long,” he says finally and Tony frowns.

“Which means?” he asks, disliking beating around the bush. Normally, at least with him, T’Challa didn’t bother with that euphemistic avoiding the subject crap that politicians- even the ones in Wakanda- liked to partake in. Though in Wakanda’s defense they did it less than everyone else so kudos to them, it was still annoying.

“Children,” T’Challa says. “And of all the talking we did about how we would maintain out relationship we never discussed _that_ in depth. Stupid of us really, I am expected to have kids, that should have been brought up before _marriage_.” His tone is scolding, but he’s only pissed off at himself and he’s about to be pissed off at Tony too.

He didn’t like fighting with T’Challa despite being willing to pick a fight with near everyone else so he sighs. “I don’t want kids, T’Challa. I had a shitty father, I’m not running the risk I’ll end up anything like him when there’s a kid’s life on the line. Kid’s lives aren’t something to gamble like that,” he says softly.

T’Challa tilts his chin up, gazing down at him with a shocking amount of love and affection on his face. “Tony, do you believe your father ever considered what your life would be like dealing with him? Do you believe he considered your wellbeing at all, or did he just want someone he could hand the company off to so he could have a legacy?” he asks.

They both already knew the answer to that so Tony frowns, “what are you trying to say T’Challa?” he asks.

“I am saying that you will not parent like Howard because the first thing you did when I brought up kids was consider the wellbeing of the child. I understand your concerns as much as I can without personal experience with them, but you are already a better parent than he was. Beyond that I know you have no faith in you- and you should- but you should have faith in me to ensure I would never allow you to act like your father, that is _heinous_. Plus I’ve always wanted a child, just one. I don’t want a herd,” he says and Tony snorts at the brief look of horror on T’Challa’s face. Probably because his mother wanted a herd and Shuri wanted nothing to do with kids so T’Challa was her only shot.

He settles back into T’Challa’s arms and lets out a deep breath. “And how much time do we have before your mother chances breathing down my neck about this?” he asks.

“Probably a week,” he says and Tony sits back up and turns to give him an unimpressed look. “What? I knew you didn’t want kids and I didn’t want to fight so I put talking off a little,” he says on his own defense.

“ _So_ not a good excuse. You’re seriously giving me a _week_?” he asks in disbelief but T’Challa shakes his head.

“I am sure I can stave my mother off by reminding her of that time you complimented her hat,” he says and Tony groans.

Meet the parents was never something he did well, but this experience in particular really took the shit sundae. “I didn’t _know_ ,” he says, embarrassment and horror at his actions flowing back to him too easily.

“I know, and she knows, but you complimented her mourning hat,” T’Challa says, wincing.

It had been _one_ time and Ramonda wasn’t likely to forgive him for the massive social faux pas. “I wasn’t trying to be a dick, she was wearing all white and that’s what we wear to weddings, I didn’t know that’s what you guys wore to funerals!” Or about mourning hats or several other odd, by his standards at least, traditions and pieces of culture that he had messed up on. To add insult to injury T’Challa never messed up anything American but Tony has learned that that was because he didn’t talk if he didn’t know what he was talking about. He said it was a trick he learned from Nakia that gave the illusion of always being right. It was useful and Tony could learn a thing or two from it but would he? Probably not.

“And in her defense my father _just_ died, it probably should have been obvious to you,” T’Challa says gently. Yeah, probably, at least a little but it flew over his head.

“I did apologize,” Tony adds meekly. Repeatedly and profusely but it didn’t seem to matter and the woman still wasn’t fond of him almost two years later.

T’Challa brushes his finger tips along Tony’s jaw, “I know, and she did not accept because she was angry and I understand her reaction even if I think it was a touch extreme. The outside world knew nothing of Wakandan traditions and although the connection may seem obvious now it would not have then. But it will serve me now nonetheless. That, and Nakia has graciously offered to help me out in that regard.”

Tony catches T’Challa’s hand and presses a finger to his knuckles, smiling into it. “Thank you,” he says and he means it too. He appreciated the time to think, and especially that Nakia was trying to help him out.

*

It was no surprise to anyone that Ramonda didn’t like or approve of Tony but she had her country to think about and if T’Challa was considering kids, and she could tell he was, she wanted to know what kind of father his idiot husband would be. He should have stayed with Nakia- she’s a nice Wakandan girl and she talked sense _into_ T’Challa instead of _out_ of him. But no, he had to go with some random foreigner with a self-destructive streak a mile wide, a shady past, and so many personality flaws his entire personality basically was a flaw.

This was the person her son chose though so she sets aside her differences to talk to him no matter what stupid confused look was currently on his face. “I know you don’t want kids. T’Challa said he was prepared but somehow _that_ slipped his mind,” she says, shaking her head at her child’s mindlessness in marrying someone because they generated a lot of passion and nothing else. He and Nakia had balance and history; all he and Tony had was lust. When that faded there would be nothing left but resentment but T’Challa refused to listen to that when she told him about it.

Tony seems to accept his fate and he sighs, “no, I don’t. I don’t know what you know about my past, probably more than I’d want you to to be honest, but I had a shitty home life. It hasn’t exactly made me want to have kids,” he says.

She snorts, “oh I’m sure not getting another new car on your birthday was difficult,” she says, rolling her eyes and Tony lets out a humorless laugh.

“Oh I got the car, it was the split lip, black eye, and fractured wrist I didn’t want. All because I was more excited about that than stock shares in the company. What kid wants stock shares anyways, cars are cool and stocks are boring. Or I thought they were then, its not so bad now,” he says, considering this for a moment.

The one good thing about Tony Stark was that he wasn’t hard to read and that’s why Ramonda winces hard at his response. It wasn’t a lie and he was clearly referencing a specific experience and what was worse was the tone he used. Like this was blasé, normal even. “I’m so sorry,” she says softly, knowing that wasn’t exactly sufficient.

Tony shrugs, “whatever, you aren’t the first person to make that exact comment word for word. You are the first person who’s got more money than me to say it though so uh. Kudos to that I guess. Plus I guess its paybacks for the hat comment,” Tony winces, “sorry.”

She shakes her head, “how were you supposed to know?” she says and Tony frowns, surprised by her reaction. “What? You think I was mad about the comment? I wasn’t- that’s to be expected when you marry someone with no knowledge of your culture. And _that’s_ why I was upset about it. He had Nakia, they were a good match and he married _you_ \- someone who has no idea what he walked into or the rich, beautiful history of it. And he _defended_ it,” she says, shaking her head at T’Challa’s actions.

“Just because I didn’t know doesn’t mean I wasn’t willing to learn,” Tony says softly. “So many of the things here are bizarre to me- not in a bad way, don’t look at me like that. I’m a naturally curious person is all, the first thing I always want to do when I run into something new is to learn about it. I was never closed off to understanding you culture.”

Ramonda shakes her head, “our culture is _not_ for you to understand, it is _ours_ and the last thing we need is some… clueless colonizer looking in on us like we’re a science experiment to be categorized and labeled!” She respected her husband’s choice to open Wakanda to the world, and she supported T’Challa in continuing his efforts but T’Chaka knew the limits to that, where he should stop. T’Challa was losing sight of that and that scared her.

Tony stands, shaking his head and waving a hand around- a frequent habit of his when he was emotional. “I’m not some colonizer trying to label your culture through my own understanding of the world! I’m not trying to look at something I wasn’t invited to see, I’m trying to understand where my husband came from, how it shaped him and how it will inevitably shape our kid. I _can’t_ remain ignorant to Wakanda and its traditions when I, whether anyone likes it or not, married into them. And how _incredibly_ disrespectful and ignorant would I be to expect T’Challa to understand America and how we do things without ever giving him the same courtesy?” Tony shakes his head and sighs. “I get it, you guys survived on secrecy and it can’t be easy to have me here. But I’m not here as a voyeur, I’m here because this,” he gestures at the colorful walls around them, “is a part of someone I love and I can’t just ignore that. I can’t love T’Challa without a relationship to the country that made him who he is. And who our kid will be.”

He sits down after that, seemingly losing steam after his rant and Ramonda… was impressed. Skeptical, but impressed. “You’ve thought about this,” she states more than asks and Tony nods.

“How could I not? I have no choice but to consider it if Wakanda expects an heir. And… alright this is going to make me sound like a dick, but what about me? Don’t give me that look, let me explain. So T’Challa and I have a child, the child will be expected to grow up here, participate in Wakandan traditions, the whole bit. That all makes sense, but I’d be that child’s father too, so where do I fit in? Where’s my cultural history? Actually just me in general- do I even _get_ a place in this kid’s life or are you all going to try and oust me from that too?” he asks, shaking his head.

Ramonda, with effort, resists the urge to roll her eyes because Tony had put thought into this regardless of how much she disagreed with that last statement. He was clearly making an effort to understand her so she would give him the same courtesy. “What do you mean where do you fit? And what do you mean ‘ousting’ you from the child’s life?” she asks, putting effort into not putting a dramatic inflection on ‘ousting’. They were hardly ousting Tony; they just didn’t want him here. That was not the same thing.

Tony’s jaw clenches briefly and by some miracle Bast surely produced he doesn’t immediately say something stupid. “Wakanda has no interest in me and I get it- especially considering the historical context for your dislike. So fine, do your best to shut me out- but if you continue on that path I will have _no_ place in my own kid’s life because Wakanda isn’t going to see that child as mine and that’s not fair. It’s not fair of you to ask T’Challa to have a kid because the country needs an heir and its less fair to cut his significant other out just because he’s from another country. I’m not having a child only to have no place in that child’s life,” he says with a surprising amount of conviction.

“You know the child will be T’Challa’s, right?” she asks more as a test than anything and Tony finally breaks and rolls his eyes at that.

“Yes, I’m aware that his… genetic material is what will be used but the child won’t be _his_ , it’ll be _ours_. I have a right to a place in my kid’s life even if genetically speaking the child isn’t mine. That isn’t what matters anyways, not really. What matters is love and I don’t want to be barred from loving this child,” he says. “And by the way its _super_ creepy that this potential kid is basically already public property to Wakanda. I grew up dealing with being a celebrity and its not fun for a country to view you as their public domain so I’m sorry but everyone has to cut that shit out _now_ ,” he adds, face twisting in disgust.

It was in that moment that Ramonda wonders if maybe she misjudged Tony. She assumed, perhaps wrongly, that a biological connection would be important to Tony. It was, after all, very prominent in America’s culture that genetic children were superior so she frowns. “That is an unusual belief in your culture- at least from my understanding. The genetics thing,” she adds, willing to admit that perhaps she understood American values incorrectly. She was curious about the second half of that statement too, but that was another discussion altogether.

Tony nods, “you’re not wrong. But the benefit to having an awful father is that you learn early on that genetics don’t _shit_ as far as emotion goes. Rhodey and I aren’t related but he’s like a brother to me, he’s more important to me than anyone I’m actually related to. And Italians have big families, trust me I have no small amount of relatives. Point is I already knew genetics didn’t matter and on some level I knew T’Challa would be expected to have a kid even if I didn’t want to admit it. And I knew at least one of them wouldn’t be genetically related to me and he only wants one. I don’t care about that. And even if I did my husband has a kid, I have a kid, there’s no getting around that. All I want is a place in that kid’s life,” he says softly.

She sighs and sits down beside him, “I may have misjudged you,” she tells him, willing to give him just a dash of credit.

“You guys should consider new genetic material,” he blurts, “you’re sitting in a genetic bowl and without diversity being added to it you guys are all going to end up inbred.” They stare at each other in complete silence before Tony speaks again. “I’m sorry its been eating at me since I got here, I had to say it.

Ramonda stands, “I was wrong about being wrong about misjudging you,” she tells him.

Tony throws his hands up, “oh come on, that’s just science! You guys should know that, you’re so much further ahead than everyone else!” he says, words trailing after her as she walks away.

*

T’Challa would look hilariously unimpressed if Tony didn’t have context for why he looked that way. “You told my mother that Wakanda was inbred?” he asks and Tony sighs.

“One, that’s an exaggeration. Two, I’m just saying you need diversity in genetics to not go the way Spanish royalty did back in the day, I’m just pointing it out,” he says, hands in the air in his defense.

T’Challa lets out a long, deep breath. “Yes, we figured that out _many_ years ago so we started kidnapping orphaned children from surrounding countries- he have new genetic material,” he says in an exasperated tone that was so not worthy of being thrown on to such a horrifying statement like _Tony_ was the weird one.

His eyes all but bug out of his head, “you _what_? T’Challa you can’t just kidnap children; this should be common sense send them all home! What the _hell_?” he asks, waving a hand around.

“Yes, we know that is a terrible thing to do- the practice was made illegal fifty years ago I’m just saying your concerns were unfounded and slightly offensive,” he says.

Tony shakes his head and runs his fingers through his hair, wondering how the hell he ended up here casually talking about _kidnapping_ children. “They were already orphans, Tony, we weren’t stealing them from parents,” T’Challa adds.

“Still kidnapping!” Tony tells him. “And your mom was offended I was concerned about Wakanda’s genetic material. I don’t mean to be a dick but that’s fucked up.”

T’Challa squints, “your country was made on the backs of slaves and the genocide of the Native Americans, who are you to judge?” he asks and Tony winces.

“Okay touché, America wins the Most Fucked Up History award there, but thank _god_ you guys aren’t snatching kids anymore. So um, on to other topics do you know where to get some of that bird that you really don’t like for some reason that tastes way better than anything we have in America? Because that’s the best damn bird I’ve ever eaten and I’m pretty sure I could live the rest of my life eating just that,” he says. T’Challa’s whole face seems to wrinkle at once and Tony laughs at the expression, especially considering its probably the ugliest T’Challa could make himself and he pulled off the wrinkled face look too well for any mere mortal.

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)
> 
> *Note, a lovely reader pointed out that Ramonda is T'Challa's step mom (at least in the comics) but the movie made no indication that they kept this or changed it, so I went with making her his bio parent. Further stuff will blend comic and movie canon- I'll make note of that later to avoid further confusion!


End file.
